I've been thinking about a similar variant, but shelved it several times for the sheer amount of people required:

- Every country has a President. This President is the only one who can send press to other powers
- Every starting unit has a General. These Generals have control over their units, and are the ones who enter the orders for each of their units.
- Every time a unit grabs another SC, that General can build a new unit which is now his/hers to control.
- Each country has a war room, which is not accessible to other countries.

Victory conditions:
- Presidents: normal victory conditions
- Generals: most units wins

No fighting in the war room.

I assume the king would get power to control builds then?

Sounds pretty interesting. Yes it may require a lot of player, but I think you should go through with it anyway. We can announce games that are being played on the forum, so people don't go ahead and start their own games.

Yes, forgot to mention that. King decides on builds.

What would the map be?

Classic. 7 powers, 3 players per power. 21 total people needed. The game is the same as classic Dip, victory conditions are the same, with just the press and order submission variation. It would add another layer of complexity to press, and also have another level of uncertainty about order execution. Drama not just between powers, but within powers as well!

Even if the admiral can't talk directly to the general, couldn't the king tell one what the other wants him/her to know?

I have to say, I really like to idea. And yes @mitomon I imagine that he could because he can speak to both of them. In the beginning I wasn't very sure about the general and admiral not being able to speak to each other, but it's actually a pretty good idea. The king could have more control. I repeat, I really like this idea.

Let's make his happen

Agreed, this is great!

Under what circumstances would one anticipate the Admiral and/or General disobay the King's orders?

Wot JaimeR said. How is this an interesting game for either Admirals or Generals?

There's no reason for them not to simply submit the orders they're given.

TheMinisterOfWar's variant at least suggests something interesting, although I suspect it would be unworkable. Dip has too many of both forced plays and unforced guess plays.

I agree, that's why I put in an incentive for getting the most SCs. Then one could foresee even units from the same country bouncing on a neutral SC, trying to get the build.

@thorfi - So you can't imagine a situation where an admiral or general thinks they know better what to do than the king? The Admiral and General can see the map and the record of old orders. Imagine a large land battle in the Balkans or a naval battle in the Mediterranean. I would be willing to bet that fairly often the General and/or Admiral would override one or more of the King's orders. That they are not privy to diplomatic press makes their decision to do this or not imperfect. I really feel that if you get three WebDip players together the only thing they will agree on is that the other two players are idiots. There will be dissent and there will be orders submitted by the king that will be overridden by the Admiral/General.

@TMOW - Is the role of the president in your version simply a diplomatic one? He would then relay the results of press to his generals? The generals I imagine would enter the orders, and either follow the president's suggestions or not. Would the generals be able to communicate with each other?

The only way I see this being viable is if the "Kings" work out "deals" but not "details". Such as hey I'll work with you against this guy.... then the General or Admiral would have to have a GBish style guessing game of what to do. But they would have some knowledge of the plans of their allies. I think that would make it interesting enough for all parties involved.

In my variant the powers of the king/president are limited to talking to his team.

A diplomat exists who is allowed to talk to other diplomats, and make recommendations to the king/president. The general and admiral just enter orders.

This could also include a four year election process where a new president is chossen by people on each team, and the president chooses who will fill the other positions.

If you wanted a bit more press then perhaps generals could send 1 and only 1 message total to one other general in a simple format saying ... these are the moves I am submitting. The Admirals could do the same. but this is one total for the entire phase. the generals/admirals could lie if they wanted to but could only send one total message each phase to one of the other generals or admirals.

I thought about allowing Admirals and Generals to discuss things with other powers' Admirals and Generals, but only if their units are in adjacent territories. It would get really cumbersome quickly though.

@OB:

In my conception the idea was one dedicated war room per country, where others could not join. The President can make deals with other countries, but he'll need to convince his generals it's in their interests too. I would expect a turn to go:

- President discusses with Generals
- President discusses with other presidents
- President tells results to Generals
- Generals input orders.

There's enough moments for interesting ambiguity imho. And again, the Generals want to have their cut of the spoils.

And no, Generals could only talk to their own Powers' colleagues.

Can a President fire their Admiral or General?

If not, then what recourse does the President have when there's dissent?

To answer that:
Maybe the President can (during certain times) order his Admiral and General to switch roles. If the Admiral or General is more "trustworthy" then maybe the President can assign that person to the more critical units on the board.

Interesting, I hadn't thought about firing a military leader. My gut says no because the conseq

stupid phone... the consequence of a dysfunctional team should be the demise of the power. It's in all three's interests to work together. But, I suppose a wrinkle could be that if there is a two out of three vote, roles could be switched.

I agree, no firing. And there can be no true dissent, because the Generals choose the orders. Regardless of disagreements in the teams, there *will* be orders.

Also, I don't like the separation between Admirals and Generals. It would suck to be the General of E for a long while. I tend to think just 'units'. But then I'm basically saying my version, so I guess it's a matter of taste.

@TMOW - I thought about that too, separating Admirals and Generals as a drawback, gicen that the Austrian admiral will likely be pretty bored. But then again, it's kind of like being randomly assigned Italy when you are a player who enjoys a solo.

Thanks to all who contributed to the discussion. Looks like this one is interesting, but maybe not quite ready for prime time. I'll work to develop it some more and re-post when I have some of the wrinkles ironed out.

Seperating Admirals and Generals has the advantage of making it harder to work as a team.

General and Admiral will often have to discuss moves regardless to co-ordinate. This might make things more interesting, and also given plausible deniability for President-Kings who want their armies to move correctly but have their Admirals put in the 'wrong' orders...

It would be nice to assign other roles, if the President-King could assign a diplomat per country, or one diplomat to a group of countries.

A spy role could exist for grey press.

But i'm love to see a group of 9 or 11 players per country. With each canvasing and voting for their president first - then the president appointing people to certain roles.

And leaving 7 public threads for continued campaigns within each (which would then be visible to other countries) aswell as a private thread to discuss moves ( the war room)

Lastly, a mechanic for moving country... Though how countries grant citizenship ( ie voting rights) to new people would be interesting.

Maybe taking a home centre from another nation would allow you to steal some of their citizens...

Again elections every 4 years for president, and the President can appoint whoever they want as General/Admiral/Diplomat (in theory in my system you could appoint the same person to multiple roles...)

Of course getting 63 odd players and keeping them interested might be difficult... But i think we could manage it.

I like it.